Challenge Cup: Sheffield Steelers 9-0 Edinburgh Capitals

Sheffield missing Simon Butterworth and Mark Dutiaume, Edinburgh missing Iain Beattie, Neil Hay, Martin Cingel, Jeff Marshall, Steven Lynch and Paddi Lochi with David Beatson, Laurie Dunbar and Jaroslav Prosvic added to their roster.

Newcastle Vipers go through in the Challenge Cup by the narrowest of margins as Sheffield fail to win by the 10 clear goals they needed. This result means Sheffield and Newcastle finish level on points, level on goal difference but Newcastle have scored more goals and that takes them through.

With home announcer urging the 2006 crowd to declare "I believe!" as Steelers chased the goals, Steelers never really looked like netting ten until the final session when early goals from Andrew Luciuk (40:49) and Jonas Lennartsson (43:18) took the score to 7-0 with over 16 minutes remaining. But the next goal failed to arrive until 5 minutes remained when Martin Massa flicked home from low on the right (54:46).

A minute later the same player found Kent Simpson and his first time pass across the face of goal left Dan Ceman (55:55) with the easy task of adding the ninth.

But despite enjoying 2 minutes of powerplay advantage Steelers managed just one more shot on the outstanding Martin Kucera and the home side slipped to an agonising exit from the cup.

Home goalie Jody Lehman did well to blank Tony Hand and Fredrick Oduya in final period breakaways and produced further good stops at either end of the middle session.

But arguably the tone was set in the opening period when Sheffield laid siege to the home goal without looking like scoring, until Warren Tait's screened shot squeezed under Kucera's stick (16:25). Within 2 minutes Kent Simpson's shot rebounded to Mike Peron who made no mistake (18:13), but really the home side needed more than that from 18 shots.

Ceman netted high from low on the right (23:59) and after a superb poke-check by Lehman to deny Jim Vickers, Massa netted at the back post on a delayed penalty play against Vickers for holding (27:11).

Dino Bauba just failed to get on the end of Hand's defence-splitting pass as Edinburgh made Lehman earn his keep, but only Sheffield found the net, this time on the powerplay with Lennartsson opening his account for the club (33:55).